Like As the Time
by Ellipsis the Great
Summary: “I’ll always be wrong.” “I can’t have ‘right.’” “So wrong will have to do?” “I might be wrong for you, too. Will you settle for that?” “I would never settle for anything less than what I want.” “I want you.” Seiner. Don’t read if you want sense-making.


**Like As the Time**

A One-Shot by Ellipsis the Great

**Summary**: "I'll always be wrong." "I can't have 'right.'" "So wrong will have to do?" "I might be wrong for you, too. Will you settle for that?" "I would never settle for anything less than what I want." "I want you." Seiner drabble. Don't read if you want sense-making.

**DISCLAIMER**: Kingdom Hearts and everything affiliated with it belongs to SquareEnix and Disney. All I own is the plot…

**Rated**: T

_A wise man,_

_Watching the stars pass across the sky,_

_Remarked,_

_In the upper air the fireflies move more slowly._

_-Amy Lowell, 'Meditation'_

There was a time, before the world turned and times changed, when Hayner was happy.

Some would have called it a simpler time, but things weren't simpler. Not really. It was just that Hayner was happy, then—and when a person is happy, they don't much care about how simple or complex things are.

But of course, the world did turn, and times did change. Things changed. People changed.

Hayner…didn't feel like he had changed, or turned.

He still loved to skateboard and Struggle. He still enjoyed his fights with Seifer and the rest of the Disciplinary Committee more than almost anything else. He still tried to drag Pence and Olette up to the clock tower for a sea salt ice cream.

But now…well, Pence and Olette were dating, which that made things awkward. Olette wouldn't eat ice cream anymore, since she was trying to watch her figure (Hayner could have told her, after a short crush-induced month of watching her figure, that it was just fine). And Pence usually preferred to study for college exams or work at his part-time job to save up money to take Olette out on dates.

Hayner couldn't keep up—and he wasn't sure he wanted to, anyhow. Life had gotten so complicated, ever since…

Ever since what?

Ever since…things started feeling like they were missing something.

Since that kid…the brunet with too-blue eyes…had come out of the forest, disrupted anything and everything, and ridden away on the ghost train like…well, a ghost.

But no. It had started before that.

Hayner couldn't pinpoint the exact moment. But one day, the world had turned so abruptly that _his_ world—his _life_—had come to a standstill.

So now, as the people around him tossed their caps into the air and hugged each other in joy and sorrow altogether, he slipped away.

He went to Sunset Hill.

It had become his favorite time of day, sunset. Just as the sun had finished its daily route, and the crickets began their nightly song, and the fireflies danced to the tune.

He closed his eyes as the first trills drifted through the air, then opened them again to watch the lightning bugs flicker restlessly in the dying light of the day.

He could remember back…back, back, back to when he was happy. Coming to this hill with Pence, and Olette, and…and someone else…or, no, just the other two. When they were children, they would catch fireflies, and watch them crawl around in their hands, or accidentally squish them. Olette used to tear off the shining ends and stick it to her ring finger, and pretend one or the other of the boys had proposed to her. Later, she would deny it, but Hayner always remembered, and they still came out, and talked, and watched the fireflies wander about like shooting stars.

A flash of yellow near his eye awarded him with a snatch of a memory—of golden blond hair rustling on the wind, and too-blue eyes (oh, but hadn't that boy been a brunet?), and a quiet, self-assured laugh.

He shook his head and sunk down into the nearly knee-high grass. Tried to remember if this was how he had seen the world back then, back when he was happy. He didn't think so.

So he sank down lower, and lay down, and closed his eyes. The night crawlers sang him to sleep, and in his dreams their gentle footsteps across his cheeks stirred up memories of fleeting touches, sloppy kisses, shy glances, and…happiness.

And then…loss.

(WELLISN'TTHISROMANTIC?!)

He woke to rough shaking, and that burning feeling one gets when they have been crying for so long that their tears have caused their skin to chap.

"The fuck did you come all the way out here to cry for, chickenwuss?"

His eyes fluttered open, and rested lazily on the speaker, bleary with sleep.

"Mm?"

"They're having a regular _sob party_ back at the high school, y'know." Seifer said, as if Hayner hadn't just said the single most unintelligent thing on the planet. "Even lamers like you can get away with crying, there."

Hayner stared at his long-time rival, eyebrows furrowing together as his mind struggled to remember the difference between dream and reality. "You have blond hair." He remarked finally. Oddly enough, it wasn't as idiotic a comment as one might think—Seifer's hair wasn't something anyone saw often, being hidden under his beanie as it usually was.

"Always have." Seifer drawled, unimpressed. "You got a point?"

"It's the wrong shade." He said sadly, eyes closing again in a vain attempt to recall just what on earth the _right_ shade was. Why it was the right shade. Who it had belonged to…

"Yours ain't all that great, either." Seifer huffed, sitting down beside him.

He yawned and leaned against the burly teen, still drained even though he had slept for…who knew how long? "It's pretty." He murmured sleepily. "I like it."

Seifer harrumphed. He probably took issue with any part of him to be referred to as 'pretty.' "…You're so weird."

"Mm." He said again, sighing contently. Seifer was surprisingly warm. And comfortable. And he smelled like bubbles.

"Y'know…" Seifer said, trailing off as if annoyed by his inadvertent reference to the…less intelligent of his two best friends. "Not too long ago—yesterday, even—we'd have been punching each other right now."

"Yesterday you didn't smell like bubbles." Hayner said, as if that should explain everything.

"…Excuse me?"

"Yesterday you didn't smell like bubbles." He repeated obligingly.

"Bubbles."

"You…do know what they are, right?"

"Of course I…" Seifer stopped, cut off by Hayner's laugh. "You aren't as funny as you think you are, lamer."

"And you aren't as serious as _you_ think _you_ are. It's an even trade-off." Hayner replied. Then he pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, resting his cheek on his knees so that he could look at his unusual companion.

"What is it now?" Seifer asked after a moment of awkward silence.

"Your eyes are the wrong shade of blue." He buried his face in his knees.

"And yours aren't blue at all." Seifer said irritably. "Is _everything_ about me wrong?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's not a _bad_ kind of wrong."

"That makes no sense."

"Nothing about this makes sense." And he sighed again, all but throwing himself backwards. "I just want to be happy again."

"And being happy means the right shade of blond hair and the right shade of blue eyes and someone who doesn't smell like bubbles, I take it?" Seifer drawled.

He considered the question. "I…suppose not. But…it would make it easier?" He wasn't sure.

"Well, sorry I can't make you happy." Seifer began to stand up, but paused when Hayner grabbed his arm.

"I didn't say that." Hayner said. "I said it would make it easier. And easy isn't always good, you know."

Seifer pursed his lips together. "You don't mind me being wrong?"

He shook his head. "Sometimes wrong is actually right."

"You still make no sense."

"Us getting together makes no sense."

"Touché."

And so the world turned.

(ACTUALLYITISN'TROMANTICATALL)

"My name isn't Roxas."

"What?"

"When you…" Seifer trailed off awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck, as if he and his boyfriend weren't naked, and hadn't just had crazy-wild monkey sex. "You said 'Roxas.'"

"You have the wrong name." Hayner joked. It was a bad joke—the kind that would never be funny. His voice lowered into a whisper. "My name isn't Roxas, either."

"I didn't call you that." Seifer's voice was soft, too.

"I'm sorry."

"I'll always be wrong."

"I can't have 'right.'"

"So wrong will have to do?"

"I might be wrong for you, too. Will you settle for that?"

"I would never settle for anything less than what I want."

"I want you."

A firefly landed on Hayner's shoulder.

(WELLFUCKITALL)

"You were staring at him for a very long time."

"His hair was the right shade of blond."

"And his eyes were the right shade of blue?"

"Yes."

"So he's right."

"The person with him was right for him."

"How could you tell?"

"He was happy."

"How could you tell?"

"Don't repeat questions."

"Well?"

"His smile was right. But the smile I remember wasn't that one."

"Is _he_ right?"

"Sometimes what's right for one person, isn't right for the other."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

(INORITE?BTWTHESEAREALLPAGEBREAKS)

"Are you happy?"

"It's not the same."

"Not the same?"

"As when I was happy before."

"It's the wrong kind of happy." Seifer laughed.

"Sometimes wrong can be right."

"That sentence won't make sense no matter how many times you say it."

"I'm happy, Seifer. It's a different kind of happy, but it's still good."

"Are you still settling?"

"No. You're the right kind of wrong."

"And you _still_ make no sense."

"Some things never change?"

"Everything changes."

"Thank God." A pause. "I love you, Seifer. That will never change."

"Of course it will."

Hayner laughed. "Sure. Tomorrow, I'll love you more."

"I'll love you more, too."

The End.

_A/N: Don't ask me. I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't. Hope you enjoy it in spite of its meandering about and lack of sense. =3=_

_I'm sorry my weird hiatus-thing (?) was broken by this…THIS MADNESS. TTATT It isn't even Spartan. Bah._


End file.
